good morning. i'm richard lui in for chris jansing today. the president is going back to washington. congress is also coming back tomorrow. there's less than one week left to avert the tax hikes and automatic cuts that go in to effect january the 1st. it looks like any deal will be a lot smaller than everyone want. >> realistically, i personally i don't think we'll get the big plan in the next six days. be great if we could . >> but this morning, bernie sanders said the blame is with the republicans. >> there's really a great deal of concern that the republican party failed to do anything. that it seems that in the house now boehner has no control over his extreme right wing faction. want to bring in david nakamara and meredith shiner.

david, i'll start with you. you know, the president coming back for appearance sake as some might say or, you know, when we look at what he can do tomorrow what might he have in the works here? >> richard, i think to get a look at that, look at friday scaling down the proposal. he said i want a big deal ultimately but before the new year we don't have time and probably going to work with senate -- the senate to sort of come up with a possibly smaller stop gap deal. he wants the tax breaks for those under $250,000 and maybe temporary measures to delay the spending cuts or a stop gap measure to buy time after the new year. >> in addition, as a part of that smaller deal you talk about, david, to you here, meredith, there will be extension of unemployment insurance, perhaps also putting off the automatic cuts and as david was noting, extending the tax cuts for incomes up to $250,000.

some folks are asking, though, meredith, is this the best they can hope for? >> well, so, right before the president left for hawaii he had a meeting at the white house with senate majority leader harry reid and seeing both sides dig in on what they want and i think the smaller package, at least before new year's or right around the beginning of the year is probably the best to hope for. right now they're running out of time. lawmakers aren't returning to town, most of them, until tomorrow. the president won't be back until tomorrow and while most rank and file members won't be involved in the day-to-day negotiations of whatever this deal might be, they're going to have to vote for it. you saw right before christmas, speaker john boehner tried to move his own independent plan to raise taxes on income levels over a million dollars and he wasn't able to do that successfully. and i think it was a big sign about the difficulties he'll have even wrangling the majority of his caucus and so i think in order to get something done, anything done, to make sure that taxes don't increase on middle class americans, to make sure

that the spending cuts don't start immediately, a lot of lawmakers are leary of them despite they voted for them two summers ago, they hope to set the infrastructure in place. >> well and good. but intimating here, meredith, who's going to be part of the wrangling? who's the wrangler? last time at least from what it looks like, anyone who talked about this deal, that was on friday when that happened. the president then met with harry reid and talked to john boehner by phone and we have heard harry reid is working on legislation, perhaps mitch mcconnell's involved in this, as well. so when we look at this, david, who's pulling the strings now? who will sit down and make the deal happen? >> there's eyes on mitch mcconnell. he's been influential in past debt negotiations. a year and a half ago in sort of coming up with something that his fellow republicans would like and i think the question is, though, as meredith said,

john boehner doesn't seem to have full control of his caucus and looking at the house, is boehner comfortable with moving something with a majority of democratic support and some republican support to put it over the threshold. looks like there's a lot of shifting going on about who to blame going over the cliff and probably not a good sign because they're setting up who to blame and might be an inkling to come. >> the votes not on the side of boehner last week, meredith, if there's a bipartisan deal out of the senate, will those who were not for john boehner's plan "b" then agree with a bipartisan bill coming over from the senate? >> does it matter? if you look at the bipartisan agreement that is have come to this congress, the multiple agreements to avert shutdown, a debt ceiling deal two summers ago, oftentimes started with negotiations between the speaker of the house and president and ended being mostly in

negotiation between the two senate leaders, getting enough republican senate votes to give people in the house cover and providing a lot of democratic votes in the house to pass it. you will have conservatives in the house that aren't going to support any plan you put forward. >> regardless, right. >> so you need democratic support and this idea that what happened last week with the boehner back-up plan meant that no plan will pass at all is misguided. this is how it rolls out every time but it's a matter of how large in scope to be to get enough votes. you can't go too far in one direction and alienate democratic votes and in the other way the more middle of the road republicans who support boehner is going to need. >> some are saying it looks intractable given the sequester, the triggers that were put in to the deal and yet not being able to cobble some sort of deal. stand by, if you can. bringing in congressman elijah

cummings. congressman, thank you for coming by. talking about the calendar. time is running short. we have days. there's only time to get a very small deal. it is said. do you agree with that? >> yes. i think it's going to be very, very difficult, particularly after boehner's plan "b" failed. i think your guests are right on point. i think we'll probably end up with a legislation whereby those making less than $250,000, they'll have a continued tax break. but i also want to make sure that people understand, even people making above the $250,000 would still get a tax break on that first $250,000. unemployment insurance, i think, that's going to be a necessary part of anything that the president does. and certainly -- >> congressman, is that enough? the president said he's open to $400,000. >> i tell you, i think what happened the other day with plan

"b" really hurt the possibilities of that happening because basically what they showed, that is republican tea party folks, that they would not vote for any type of tax cut. so, you know, folks on the democratic side are saying, well, wait a minute. if they're not going to agree to a tax -- holding taxes down for those under a million dollars, they're definitely not dealing with $400,000 so, therefore, let's go back to the $250,000. i think that hurt them, boehner. i think that's why boehner is being controlled, unfortunately, by the right wing. i agree with bernie sanders. very sad. i believe that boehner's a good man and wants a deal done and impossible with these folks. >> the finger's not only pointed at the republicans and the tea party caucus but also to some democrats. here's one of your republican colleagues this morning.

take a listen to what she said. >> sure. >> everything -- it's just about scoring political points and i know that the american people are tired of that. they're tired of all of us. i understand that. we just make -- used car sales men look good. that's the only group below us. we have to get our act together and prove to the american people that we can regain the trust that they once had in us and get the job done. >> yeah. the perception -- go ahead, please, congressman. looking at the can kicked down the road by both sides. >> let me be clear. she is a very good friend of mine and i understand her point of view. but she's not accurate. as a matter of fact, as recent as gallup poll that just came out, the american public is in agreement with the way the president is handling this matter. i think 56% compared to mr. boehner's 26% and what the

public voted for in the last election. a lot of things the people don't realize is president is catching hell from the left, in other words, from people who believe in the congress that the cpi, cost of living, should not be reduced so that people on veterans benefits, disabilities benefits, social security benefits, the money is not reduced considering most of the people have nothing and only getting $15,000 to $16,000 a month in social security benefits. so with the president engaging in these discussions, she cannot say that he is not coming forth and doing all that he can. i think he is doing all he can and catching hell at the same time. so, again, there is some give, give. i don't agree with the slashing of any kind of benefits for social security, people on social security and medicare benefits but i also see that the president is trying to work a

deal. >> congressman, speaker boehner also said to the president, you know, why not just give me the 2011 deal? 800 is that number there, 800 million. why not go back to that? excuse me, 800 billion. why not go to that? >> i think the president is clear that he has gone far enough. another thing that's happened since then is that the election has taken place and the people spoken loudly about where they want this president to be and i'm proud of the president. i think when i move throughout the district in this holiday, i had a thousand people at a party, most of the people saying they like what he's doing. they like the fact he's standing up and at the same time trying to be reasonable with regard to a deal. again, i don't think the press has given the -- some of the best analysis of what happened to boehner the other night. i mean, he was soundly rejected by his party. keep in mind, all day that day

they were telling us they had the votes and next thing you know we have the speaker of the house who has to basically tell members of congress, you go home. i cannot get my party to go along with this. and there's another thing that i think that gals a lot of folks and say, for example, on my committee, most of my people took a 5% to 10% pay cut two years ago and their pay is still cut. and all these people said, fine, cummings. take a pay cut but the riches got to pay a penny more and when republicans rejected plan "b" basically say ththey said we wot the rich pay a dime more. that's something wrong with the picture. >> thank you so much for your time today. >> thank you. >> bring back our journalists that are with us. david and meredith. david, what is your thought of what the congress said there? >> he makes a good point there. the pressure of the left. obama won a re-election and he

learned that when he tried to negotiate in good faith with boehner and sort of move toward the middle and give concessions, criticized pretty sharply before maybe going too quickly to do that. i think he'll stand up longer this time. i don't think he's going to go lower. republicans of course want equal amount of spending cuts and the goal, the catch and how they do that. the president wants them to come forward with a plan. what do you want to cut? put it on paper. we'll see if that happens. won't happen in the next few days. i think again talking about more of a temporary measure. >> political fallout and as you heard congressman cummings there, meredith, he seems to think it will be -- fault aimed toward the republicans and won't it hurt both sides at the end of the day with the number of options on the plate? >> well, sure. i mean, if you look at congressional approval levels, excuse me, nationwide, i mean,

people don't like congress. they don't like the fact that people can't work together, the people they elect seem dysfunctional. it is not a win for either side but i think that all you have seen in the weeks since, i don't know, thanksgiving, is sort of this angling to set up who could potentially will failed. >> tea parties in republican congress, are those the ones that will be at fault here? i mean, but we're also reading they're taking a step back right now on the very issue of the debate of the fiscal cliff. is it really the tea party congress members or not? >> i think it's hard to predict exactly who might get blamed if something doesn't happen. that seems too far in the future for me but if you look at all of the piece that is are in play, the one thing we haven't talked about is the debt limit. it is going to be hit soon. and then the treasury can use extraordinary measures to extend it but caused the fight that made us sit here today to talk

about the quote/unquote fiscal cliff and the republican haves the boehner rule to ask for a dollar in cut for every dollar the limit is extended. the debt limit being money that we have paid and obligation to pay. and so, if democrats and republicans aren't come together now, and a month and a half from now republicans come back to the table and say we need more cuts, i don't know what the president is going to look to to cut. seems like a complicated mess that they have on their hands and the more clarity they get now, the easier it's going to be in a few weeks from now. if they get a small deal that leaves no path forward on the bigger issues i think that we'll be here in a month and a half talking about the same things. >> thank you so much, meredith and david. >> thank you. >> thank you. a huge winter storm packed with snow and sleet out of the midwest and heading towards the eastern seaboard. blizzard warnings from arkansas to illinois. wintry mix is expected in the northeast. it's the same storm system that

sparked a tornado outbreak in the south yesterday. these pictures of mobile, alabama. the twister caught on camera in the downtown area. more than 30 twisters reported yesterday in several states. we have a live update in a few minutes.

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there's still no deal to stop the looming fiscal cliff. but what happens to you if we go off the cliff? for the average american making between $50,000 and $75,000, you see a tax increase of $2,399. making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year, your tax increase is about $6,700. and on december 29th, 2 million americans will lose their unemployment benefits. i want to bring in jared bernstein, msnbc contributor and

former chief economist and economic policy adviser to vice president joe biden. that's just some of the details as you so well know here but let's remind ourselves, though, of this word that we have been using. that was termed by mr. bernanke. he called it a cliff. but really -- >> right. >> it is like falling down stairs, isn't it? >> right. more so a staircase or a slope in the sense that some of the damage you just described actually takes a while to arrive and if congress is able to quickly reverse the cliff dive, it could be more and i have heard folks use this, more of a bungee yump to get back up to the cliff. >> at the end of the day, right. >> the tax increases you noticed, these are tax increase that is are fazed in over the course of 2013. so it's not until april 2014 when you're filling out the tax bill for the prior year that you would be looking at some of the increases you just described. now, a couple of nuances,

though. the payroll tax cut that's been in effect, the 2% on your paycheck of a payroll tax break, that does go away right away. and people will likely see that quickly. and by the way, i don't think any party is talking about bringing that back in to the picture in 2013. also, this amt patch you have heard, alternative minimum tax, that's a 2012 problem. so if that doesn't get patched, people will face a higher tax bill there. when they fill out their tax bill for 2012. in april of 2013. >> many of the companies have told their payroll processors, for january use 2012 income rates, income tax rates. >> not only would the payroll processors saying that, but if we do over the cliff and it looks like a deal is forthcoming, this is important, perhaps somewhat underreported and down in the weeds, the treasury department will tell the irs, do not change the

withholding tables in the way you described because a deal is forthcoming and doesn't make sense to reprogram that massive computer system to extend the tax cuts for the -- >> they'll wait until they have a definitive solution here? >> correct. >> okay. some other shorter term implications. doctors with medicare patients see payments drop in february and the irs commissioner warning if there's no extension for the amt patch there, 80 million to 100 million people could face problems doing their taxes. >> right. so first of all, what's called the dock fix, the fact is that if this measure is not corrected quickly, part of the fiscal cliff, doctors who serve medicare patients will see their payments go down something like 27%. i mean, this is one of those crazy time bombs that's in the tax code. that's patched every year. same thing with the amt. as i just mentioned, while the other tax measures, taxpayers

won't see them until they fill out the 2013 tax bill in april of 2014, the amt patch will hit much more quickly than that. that's something needing to be patched as of early -- if we go over, needs to be patched quickly. >> let's talk about that word, sequestration and there's a lot of concern about the defense cuts and the defense department, how to deal with it. leon panetta toning down the remarks saying that they would not necessarily require immediate action and could eventually mean furloughs down the road and looking at january and the cuts divided by ten years and 12 months, talking 50 billion, 60 billion in january. >> right. it's 110 billion for the year of 2013 in automatic spending cuts divided equally between defense and nondefense. on the nonentitlement or discretionary side of budget. if you look at that month by month and the point of panetta

and many of the agencies can sort of fudge things for a few months, in most cases i don't think we'll see much impact of automatic spending cuts quickly. by the way, this has been somewhat underappreciated. in this small bore compromise that the president and many of the earlier interviewers talking about today. the one the president is pushing for, the sequester is pushed down the road. suspended. the automatic pay cuts as part of that deal suspended, something they would get back to and try to deal with later so if the president does get the compromise through, the senate and the house, then the spending cuts put on hold. >> and anger some voters, why kicking the can down the road? thank you again so much. >> thank you. new details about the upstate new york attack on firefighters. christmas eve. police saying that william spangler left a note to burn down the neighborhood and do what he quote does best, killing people. authorities say they found a three-page note with the body of

his sister in the burn out wreckage of his home. police say he killed two firefighters and wounded two more. when they responded to the fire, he set at the home on monday and used the same type of rifle in the newtown school shooting that left 26 people dead. [ "the odd couple" theme playing ] humans. even when we cross our "t"s and dot our "i"s, we still run into problems -- mainly other humans. at liberty mutual insurance, we understand.

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we could learn today who will replace replace senator inouye. he died last week. hawaii's democrats will meet today to send three names to the governor. reports are in endorsed congresswoman henabusa. the former president was in the hospital for christmas. president obama and first lady michelle visited u.s. service members yesterday in hawaii. the commander in chief wished the troops a merry christmas. >> obviously, we are still in a

wartime footing. there are still folks as we speak who are overseas, especially in afghanistan, risking their lives each and every day. you have an entire country behind you and that all of us understand that we would be nowhere without the extraordinary service that you guys provide. and so, we want to say thank you. we love you. hotel rooms in the nation's capital are not booking up as fast as they were four years ago. officials expect between 600,000 and 800,000 for the president's second inauguration, less than half compared to four years ago. netflix had a major fail. who's to blame and will you get a refund, that's coming up. th cy to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. a smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes.

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public expectations about the year ahead are bleaker than more than a decade. a new "the washington post"/abc poll finds 53% of all americans are hopeful about what 2013 will

bring. fears of falling off the fiscal cliff are fueling this pessimism. 45% think it's unlikely a budget deal will be reached between the president and congress. but nbc news's political director chuck todd says despite that possibility, going for a small, stripped down agreement isn't all good. >> i think politically, the president's making a mistake to go for a small deal. he'll lose leverage as the year goes on. he'll get a big political victory but he should try one more time for the big deal. you had nearly 200 house republicans about to vote to raise taxes on millionaires. >> joining me now, joe sustek and david winston. thank you both for being here today. i'll start with you, congressman. does the president's ability to get what he wants diminish over time? should he go big one more time? >> for the american people. it is not about him and his leverage. i think the president needs to try to reach the big compromise

with speaker boehner and the two men came very close. they were a few hundred billion dollars away. we need $3 trillion in debt redust over a decade. we have $1 trillion of caps in discretionary spending of 2011 and we know how we have to do it. two thirds of it has to be in spending reductions, entitlement reform and one third has to be in tax increases on the wealthy. that's the principle compromise. speaker boehner needs to bring his party along and the speaker has to make sure that his party understands why we need entitlement reform because the damage is going to be to our children, richard. >> can they do it in the handful of days ahead of them? >> you don't have to get it done in a couple of weeks. that has to be done by the middle of february to where the markets get jittery, particularly not addressing the debt ceiling. if he gets the short-term agreement in the next couple of weeks in part of it with the

$700 billion in tax increases and spending cutting and goes in place we can't sustain the gross domestic product rate at 2%. it's a two-step approach. we get the first part and then second part in february, it will be okay. >> talking small to david, flip side here, speaker boehner, doesn't he come away with less with a smaller debt? in a series of small agreements or cliff agreements, the tax increases would be more than if he had agreed to the 2011 deal. >> well, again, i think the idea here, what both want to do is get to the bigger deal. this is a huge problem here. we are looking at the deficit of this year and looking at deficit of that size as far as the eye can see and not how to put together a minor package as chuck was talking about. this is the larger deal. the problem you have, obviously, not much time so i think you're likely to see a two-step process

here. dealing with the immediate dynamics to, in fact, set up a situation to deal with the larger situation. but ultimately, here, the other element to occur is this is a real negotiating process. i have to say i was disappointed in the president when he used this line, when the speaker said to him, hey, i'm giving you $800 billion. what do i zbhet the president's response was nothing. the white house has to come up with -- >> the response of the white house is times is different. 2011 is 2011. doesn't speaker boehner get less out of a smaller deal? >> no, no. i think he wants a larger deal and going back to august of 2011, they were -- they got very close to the large deal. richard, pushing back in terms of a little bit in terms, look, this is a negotiating process. one side can't say you get nothing after you made a concession. that's the difficulty of this and part of what the two of them have to work through the sense of i won, no, i can do this.

it's what are we going to get done collectively and the challenge and the president and i understand he thinks he won the election so, therefore, he has a mandate but you can't walk in to a negotiating process and expect to get to a successful outcome with that attitude. >> both sides, both of you agree they have to work together but where you're pointing fingers is different. to you, congressman, about the doomsday predictions with the cliff and listening to the conversation earlier with jared bernstein, you might say they could be overblown. what is your thought here? i mean, the cut that is will happen because of the sequester and the tax increases, fairly incremental. who gains if the concerns are really greater than the actualities? democrats? >> no. neither side gains. who loses is the american people. i always remember what speaker boehner said. wisest words of anyone in the house of representatives handing the gavel to nancy pelosi to be speaker of the house after republicans lost that 2006 election. he said, my party forgot that

powers to be used for the good of the people and not for power's sake. that's what they have to remember. now, as far as that fiscal cliff, they can withhold the tax schedule changes. they're able like in defense, when you have a defense cut or a defense cut like that, it takes place over three to four years. it doesn't all happen this figs year. what we want is a bunny slope not a cliff so the damage is not great as long as we are able to take the short-term deal that david spoke about. what everyone is looking for, consumer and business investor is certainty. congress generates the political will with the president to address our problem. both in the grand scheme so we get $4 trillion in debt reduction over a year and second in the short term and don't have a gross domestic product grow at zee ro over the year. >> when you think about this entire issue, there is the gop

caucus and the dysfunctionality that appear to be out there with plan "b." how does the speaker get this done and look like a winner if they come up with a compromise? >> well, i mean, part of what you need to remember is over 90% of the republican caucus was going with the speaker on this. again, a handful of members, some disgruntled in terms of committee assignments and basically over 90% of the caucus with him and no democratic votes in that particular case. as we move closer, you may see that dynamic in terms of the democratic side change and again, solid support. i want to go back to one of the points that the congressman is bringing up before. the real solution is how to get the economy growing again. the best way to deal with the deficit, unemployment rate of 4%. and ultimately, one of the challenges to both individuals here, both the president and the speaker, how do you put together a plan to generate that kind of economic growth and generate that kind of employment?

because i work for the speaker back in the late '90s when we balanced the budget and what made this happen is unemployment under 4%, you can do a lot of things. >> some people say 350,000 new jobs a month. we hope for anything above what we have now. >> that's right. >> thanks for your time. >> thank you. the upper chamber of russia votes to oppose americans adopting russian orphans. they sanction russians seen as violators, some 740,000 children lack parental custody in russia. the world's longest high speed train rail is a reality. the train cuts a trip from 20 hours to 8. it's over a 1,428-mile trip. the first left beijing this morning. celebrity baby news in the form of the picture from jessica jump son in a tweet. her daughter maxwell with the

words "big sis" in the sand in front of her. seems to confirm rumors the 32-year-old singer is once again pregnant. despite slashing prices, it was a disappointing holiday season for retailers. cnbc's jackie deangelis is here. how's it going? >> good morning, richard. the numbers are in and not pretty. according to mastercard spending pulse unit, sales for the eight weeks up to christmas rose only .7 of a percent from a year ago. compared with expectations of 3% to 4% growth and a 2% figure last year, and it's really not that fantastic. not only was the overall number disappointing, but the online numbers miss the mark, too. web sales up 8.4% from last year, shy of the double digit growth that we have seen in the past. so the question is, what's to blame? hurricane sandy for one. also, uncertainty by the fiscal cliff. nothing like a pending tax hike to take the wind out of your holiday shopping sails. >> there's folks here worried

about netflix over the holiday. why? >> netflix was also a big issue and outage on christmas eve knocking out service to subscribers across the united states, canada and latin america. but the good news is that the streaming video service has been restored. netflix has 30 million streaming customers worldwide but remember that the overwhelming majority of them are in the americas so they were impacted by this. the company blaming a glitch at amazon's xlocloud computing sere in virginia. a web outage last year knocked out sites. back to you. >> refund? no? >> sounds like a plan. >> all right. cnbc's jackie deangelis, thank you. do something.org is out with its list of most charitable celebrities. bieber raised more than $5 million for charity. number four, lady gaga. pledged a million dollars for sandy relief. number three, channing tatum.

he and his wife raised millions for animal rescue groups. number two, miley cyrus. and number one, taylor swift. she donated $4 million to the country hall of fame museum. sometimes what we suffer from is bigger than we think ... like the flu. with aches, fever and chills- the flu's a really big deal. so why treat it like it's a little cold? there's something that works differently than over-the-counter remedies. prescription tamiflu attacks the flu virus at its source.

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[ male announcer ] the sprint drive first app. blocks and replies to texts while you drive. we can live without the &. visit sprint.com/drive. a massive winter storm messing up holiday travel. look at this. more than 400 flights canceled today already. joining me live from fishers, indiana, weather channel's dave malcolf. where's the storm headed now? how bad is it? >> reporter: richard, imagine a line between southern illinois, up through here, through central and northern ohio, all the way up to western p.a. that's the 800-mile stretch we're talking about this for this winter storm and how bad is it? let's measure it in flights canceled. we're talking hundreds of flighflight s canceled for just this airport

alone and then the entire airport not having almost any flights because they're all either canceled or delayed for indianapolis. we're also seeing the same cancelations in chicago, columbus, cleveland, and those airports down to dallas. seeing lots of airports closed down. the roadways are kind of slowed down right now because of visibility. a few hours ago, it was really, really hard to see because when this wind gets blowing and we are talking about 20-mile-a-hour wind gusts, it is blowing around and just see the white going down the street. that affects commerce going throughout the next few days and then bad news on the back end of this nthrough new year's, anothr storm to come through. this is a triple wallop. we had a few days ago, this one and the next one coming through. so it's not going to be good for

holiday travel, richard. >> dave, who has amazing back pedaling ability there in indiana, thank you so much for your time today with the weather. >> sure. the hard-fought presidential campaign caught the headlines but it's time to look back. here's the picks for the top five political stories of the year. good to see you here. >> good morning, richard. >> number five, the school shooting in newtown, connecticut, and the renewed debate over gun control at number five. >> certainly. that was obviously a horrible event. but it has spurred a conversation about gun control and what we're doing as a country with guns that wasn't going on for years. and that democrats in particular had really turned away but president obama seems to have embraced. now the burden is on him going in to next year, the promise that he's made to address this in the state of the union and really get specific on his proposals but he set the bar

pretty high and if he can meet that and change what people are doing in addition to change how people are talking about guns, it could have a real lasting effect on things. >> number four was the first presidential debate on your list. >> yeah. well, anybody that covered that presidential election knows it was pretty static for the entire thing. except for the week and a half, two weeks right after that first presidential debate when mitt romney came on to the stage, he was able to moderate his positions, appeal to people in the middle of the country, as well as the people in the base who were excited to see him have a fighting chance and for a moment there, it did look like he was getting the upper hand in the election. >> number three, the 47% video that, that video of mitt romney saying there's a large portion of america who believe that they're victims. >> that was the devastating moment for the romney campaign and i don't think anybody who

supports or was opposed to the romney campaign could argue that. it encapsulated a feeling that people had about mitt romney. the uneasiness about him and the way that he was perceived to feel about so much of the country and it really hurt him. it was helped in hurting him by the obama campaign and turning it in to a commercial. it went viral in so many ways and arguably the romney campaign never recovered from that, even with the first debate and president obama's failure to bring it up in that first debate with his pretty lackluster performance. >> number two, ranked wisconsin governor scott walker's victory. >> seen more and more as an important moment. in 2010, scott walker won that governor's race and might have been seen as a fluke talking about the union policy he wanted to change, the right to work laws, all of these things that became a big issue in 2011, remember all of the protests in

madison at the capital. >> yep. >> there was a thought that it could be a fluke until he won that recall election by a pretty comfortable margin and if you look at what's happened since in michigan, for example, just in the last couple of weeks, moving to change their right to work laws, also, that's a big change and signals what's going on with unions and views unions and the rights of unions seems to be changing despite really important role they had in the presidential election. >> number one, we have 15 seconds. >> well, look, this is a year that was dominated by a lot of things but the health care decision was very, very important here. could have changed the presidential election, significant way. and especially, when you look at the way that john roberts was the deciding vote, the swing vote to uphold the health care law. that is a significant, important thing that will have lasting impacts on politics and policy for years to come. >> thank you, edward, for your

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all right. christmas has come and gone but returns and holiday gift cards ensure that the busy season is not over. jane wells joins me live from los angeles with a story. how are the gift card sale this is year? >> reporter: well, they were very good, richard. i'm at the grove getting ready to open up in a few hours and people are expected to come here and ignoring the tweet you quoted saying home and relax. retailers don't want you to stay home and relax. showing the gift card video, the most popular we're told is starbucks, you got walmart in that top five, target and macy's and visa and mastercard and researchers say they reach a record $110 billion in gift card sales this year, expected to top

$130 billion by 2015. we asked consumers if they like them and buying more and from where. listen. >> i think more this year, again, it is like a lot more convenient. >> they're convenient. you know? they fit in the card. easy to take on the plane and go home, too. >> i like walmart, places like that. they have them, big selection of things. >> macy's or jcpenney. >> somebody give me, i spend it. >> reporter: i'm with her. more people are spending more of the total amount of gift card than they have in the past. it's only down about 2% of that not spent and you know we talk about gift cards. what about amazon, online? about $110 billion, richard, only $3 billion of it this year is electronic gift cards and seems so small. faster growing and really a small part of the overall gift card industry. >> spending is fun, isn't it,

jane? >> reporter: i'm sorry? >> spending is fun, isn't it? >> reporter: spending -- what is wrong with spending? if you got it, spend it. >> yeah. people are doing it with gift cards. jane wells, thank you so much. that wraps up this hour. thomas roberts is up next and thomas, oh, the grove. >> i love the grove. i was trying to figure out where she was. i love the grof. shop in the shorts at christmastime. who doesn't like that? most valuable player, richard lui, at this network. back to work. the countdown forces president obama to cut his vacation short heading back to washington, d.c. in the last-ditch effort to reach a deal. is it too late for a grand bargain? we'll talk with new york congressman meeks about that. plus, while school kids take a much-needed holiday break, there are certain officials in some states discussing arming our teachers to prevent a tragedy like sandy hook. could we see more teachers

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